


But Now It Seems You've Set It Running Free

by lit_chick08



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry hadn't realized just how much he missed Arya Stark until she was standing before him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Now It Seems You've Set It Running Free

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through "A Feast for Crows." Title comes from the song "Howl" by Florence + the Machine

Gendry is barely five steps through the inn's door when he spots the girl leaning against a table. Her back is to him, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders to brush against the center of her back, lithe limbed and leanly muscled. She wears men's clothing, heavy woolen breeches and a cloak which is too big for her, clearly stolen; it is not until she swivels her hip, adjusting her stance, he catches sight of the slender sword upon her hip, too small for a woman's hand, too small for anyone but a slip of a girl he had only ever known in boy's clothing, a ghost who still haunts his dreams.

 _The ghost of Harrenhal_ , he thinks wildly as he waits for her to turn, to see the stranger's face before he embarrasses himself by calling a dead girl's name.

When she pivots on her heel, Gendry feels his heart stop for a moment. It is her but it isn't. Her face is more angular now, baby fat gone; her eyes are still the color of the sky during a storm, but, with a clean face, he can see the detail of her face: the light freckles, the stretch of her cheekbones, the generosity of her mouth. He can make out the curve of her breasts beneath the man's tunic she wears, the shape of her hips, but there is power coiled in her body, an intangible promise of a threat which telegraphs just how much damage she can do if pushed too far.

There is no doubt in his mind this is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and her name slips past his lips before he can choke it back.

She snaps her head to look at him, her hand reaching for the sword on her hip, but she stops, surprise widening her eyes. Gendry senses Jeyne moving towards the dagger she keeps in her apron, but he knows she would never be able to draw it before Arya disarms her. He takes one uncertain step forward, repeating Arya's name with more certainty in his voice this time, and her hand falls from the pommel as a tentative smile crosses her lips.

It legitimately shocks him when Arya wraps her arms around him in an embrace; he has touched her innumerable times but never like this, never with tenderness. He squeezes her too tightly, but she doesn't protest, and Gendry cannot stop himself from inhaling the scent of her hair even as Jeyne glares from her place by the bar.

"I thought you died," he murmurs as she pulls away, leaving out the part where he hunted the woods for her for days after she ran, how he wiped angry tears of loss from his face under the cover of darkness after finding out she was spotted near the Twins during the Red Wedding.

She shrugs absently and says, "I did," and he can hear an accent to her voice now, the hint of a language he doesn't know on the tip of her tongue.

Jeyne begrudgingly fills Arya's plate with food she cannot pay for, and Gendry smiles to himself at the way the young orphan boys keep stealing glances at his old friend. As Gendry sops up some of his stew with a hard crust of bread, one of the little girls asks, "Where did you come from?"

Gendry sees the shadow flicker over her face before Arya offers, "Braavos."

"Why did you come back?" Jeyne snaps, and Gendry has the urge to shake her for being so rude. She is always like this whenever there is a girl who pays him any attention; Tom and Lem tease him when they stay at the Inn, tell him he should just marry Jeyne and be done with it, and Gendry knows that's what Jeyne wants.

Gendry is afraid to want, but he doesn't dare tell anyone that.

"I have some gifts to give," Arya replies before turning her gaze upon him. There is something familiar in her eyes, a jape, a challenge, and Gendry knows he is not going to like whatever comes out of her mouth next. "Tell me, Ser Gendry, are you and Jeyne the lord and lady here?"

He kicks her beneath the table, and she kicks him back, hitting his shin with unerring precision, and for a moment they are children again, the past six years erased.

The snow is falling heavily outside by the time he finally has a chance to speak to Arya alone. Jeyne is tending to the children, and Gendry knows she will retire after; some nights they share a bed, more out of a desire not to be alone than plain desire, and suddenly Gendry feels guilty about that. He is two-and-twenty now, a man grown, a knight, and who he takes to his bed is no one's concern but his own. And yet it curiously feels like betrayal to both Jeyne and Arya to be so grateful for the return of a girl he only knew as a child, to be so _eager_ to be alone with her.

He pours them honeyed wine as Arya toes off her boots, pulling her legs up to sit crosslegged upon the bench. She gathers her hair to one side, tying it up with a scrap of ribbon which is oddly feminine against the rest of her garb, and Gendry finds himself studying the line of her neck.

"I thought you died," he repeats after joining her on the bench, meeting her gaze steadily as she sips her wine, trying to silently communicate what exactly those words mean to him.

"I thought everyone was dead, and...There was nothing left for me in Westeros."

 _I was here_ , he wants to say. _You could have come back. The Brotherhood would have protected you. **I** would have protected you. You were my best friend._

But instead he challenges, “And what was there in Braavos?”

Arya shakes her head, setting down her cup. “Nothing. I tried to become something I wasn't, and I almost tricked myself into thinking I _was_ different.”

“What changed?”

“I saw Sansa.” Suddenly grabbing her wine, taking several hard swallows, she rushes on, “I am Arya Stark of Winterfell. My father was Eddard Stark, Hand of the King, and the Lannisters murdered him, murdered my brother and my mother; they took everything from us. When I saw Sansa, when I found out Jon and Bran and Rickon were still alive, suddenly being no one just felt wrong.”

“Then why are you here instead of in the North?”

“Because I can't just walk into Winterfell by myself and take everything back; I'm not _stupid._ ” Leaning forward, she asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

Gendry smiles. “You know I can.”

And then Arya tells him the story of an exiled queen with _dragons_ , of Ser Barristan and the Imp, of a promise the queen made her to restore her family in the North as long as the Starks of Winterfell would support her taking back the Iron Throne. Gendry listens silently, drinking his wine and marveling at all Arya has seen in the past six years, before finally asking, “You believe this Targaryen? I heard they're mad.”

“Dany's mad,” Arya states with authority, “but not in a bad way. She's going to _change_ things, and I don't know about you but I wouldn't mind some change.”

“So you're just waiting for her and her dragons to come?”

She shakes her head. “I told Dany the only way I'd bend the knee is if she lets me finish my list.”

“What list?”

“The list of people I'm going to kill for what they've done to my family and the people I love.” Draining her cup, Arya smirks at something she sees on his face. “I'm not a child anymore, Gendry. Stop looking at me like I am.”

“No, you're certainly not,” he agrees before blushing, dropping his gaze as Arya chuckles softly.

Reaching over for his wine, Arya quips, “You look different too.” Before he can ask what she means, she continues on, “There's a girl in the Vale named Mya Stone who looks exactly like you. She's King Robert's bastard.”

Gendry takes back his wine, draining the cup. In the years since leaving King's Landing, he has had enough people comment on his resemblance to the dead king, had enough people literally gasp at their likeness to finally come to terms with the fact that he is one of the many bastards of Robert Baratheon. Though it certainly answered the question as to why Queen Cersei had wanted him seized all those years ago, it did not matter to Gendry. But there is something in the way Arya says it, something beneath the surface, which makes him wonder why _she_ cares.

“When Daenerys comes, if you'd like, I could ask her to legitimize you. Storm's End would be yours.”

Gendry scoffs. “You really think your dragon queen is going to do favors for a bastard of the man who took her father's throne?” Rising to get more wine, he declares, “I'm always going to be a bastard blacksmith, m'lady.”

“Only if you want to be.” Accepting a fresh cup of wine, Arya adds, “And don't call me m'lady.”

Gendry chuckles as he reclaims his place beside her, subtly scooting closer, _needing_ to be closer. Despite the chill in the air, he can feel the heat of her body, and he has a quick, urgent impulse to trace the curve of her exposed collarbone, to see if her skin is as hot as he imagines it to be.

Burying the urge deep in his chest, he continues, “And I don't want to be the Lord of Storm's End any more than you want to be the Lady of Winterfell.”

“Fine.” Tugging the ribbon out of her hair, tugging at the curly ends of her locks, she adds, “It was just a suggestion. If you want to be a bastard blacksmith forever, go ahead. You can marry Jeyne and live happily ever after here at the Crossroads Inn for all I care.”

“I'm not going to marry Jeyne,” he objects. “I don't care for her like that.”

“But you fuck her.”

Gendry feels heat rise in his face as he sputters, “Did she tell you that?”

Arya rolls her eyes. “Yes, she asked me what kind of stew I wanted and then proudly announced she fucks you.” Reading his irritation, she rolls her eyes again. “A woman doesn't hate another woman that quickly unless she thinks you are trying to take away her man. It wasn't hard to figure out.”

He fumbles for words for a few moments before blurting out, “It's none of your business who I fuck. I'm not asking you who's been in _your_ breeches.”

This time _Arya_ blushes, and Gendry wonders if anyone _has been_ in her breeches or if, through everything, she has somehow kept her maidenhead. He doesn't doubt Arya would make any man a eunuch who dared try to take what she did not want to give, but she's also Arya Stark; he has seen her do things which grown men could not do, and he highly doubts that, if she wanted to lie with a man, she would let something as stale as tradition stand in her way.

But it also makes him want to murder any man who has touched her.

“I'm glad you never made it to the Wall,” Arya suddenly announces, fiddling with the hem of her tunic.

He is speechless for a moment, unsure how to respond. Sometimes, when his arm aches from pounding steel, when the orphans are loud or Jeyne is being trying, Gendry imagines what life would have been like if Yoren had managed to deliver them to the Wall. He thinks about what it would have been like to serve beneath Arya's bastard brother, to make armor for the rangers, to maybe see wildings and Others. Gendry did not think he would have enjoyed the Wall at all, that the attack of their train had essentially freed him of a life of servitude; Yoren's unfortunate death had given him a second chance at a life, a life as a knight, as a friend to Arya and even Hot Pie, as Jeyne's lover. Being diverted from the Wall meant he never had to swear a vow to never have anything of his own, and Gendry would not mind having something of his own.

“And if you don't want Storm's End, when the war is over, you could come to Winterfell and be our armorer,” she continues, lifting her gaze, minutely moving closer. He can feel the warmth of her skin and struggles not to touch her. “We have to rebuild, but I know you and Jon will get along well. There's a godswood and hot springs you can bathe in and - “

“Arya,” he cuts in, silencing her words. Gendry reaches out tentatively, hoping she doesn't strike him away, hoping she doesn't skewer him with the sword on her hip; when Arya remains stock still, he cups her cheek, his thumb caressing the line of her cheekbone, and her eyes flutter shut for a moment before opening, watching him steadily.

“Are you going to kiss me?” she finally asks, and Gendry wonders how many men have kissed her, if _any_ man has kissed her. Her tongue moistens her lips – preparation or instinct, Gendry does not know – but he is already moving, holding her head gently as he moves to do just that.

“Not interrupting, am I?” Jeyne asks rhetorically as she enters the room, her face utterly unrepentant as she glares at Arya, who has turned a startling shade of red. Arya is on her feet, pushing her hair out of her face, body coiled with tension, and Gendry wants to curse Jeyne for upsetting the first real moment of vulnerability he has ever been able to glimpse in Arya Stark.

“I should sleep,” Arya announces, her grey Stark eyes refusing to meet Gendry's. “Thank you again for the room.”

And then Arya is disappearing up the stairs, and Gendry finally turns to glare at Jeyne, who scoffs with a bitter smile on her face.

“Tell me,” Jeyne begins, picking up the cups which held their wine, “how you think this story ends. Maybe they sing different songs in the Crownlands, but I ain't never heard a song where the baseborn bastard weds a princess.”

“Jeyne - “

“But I _have_ heard the song where the baseborn bastard sticks his cock in the princess, and then the king takes both his cock _and_ his head,” she continues.

“You do not understand - “

“I understand perfectly,” Jeyne cuts in with a scowl. “You call yourself 'Ser' and let Lady Stoneheart pat you on the head for your steel because you hate being _common_ because a common man cannot wed a princess.” The first flicker of hurt visible on her face, she finishes, “And all you have ever wanted is the runaway princess.”

“She is my friend,” he lamely offers.

“I've never seen you greet Tom so... _enthusiastically_.”

Gendry rises, needing to escape the conversation, hating the biting truth in Jeyne's words. “You cannot know what we went through together.”

“No,” Jeyne agrees, “but that is because you would not even utter her name.” She shakes her head. “I know you do not love me, that you _cannot_ love me, especially now that she has returned. But bastards do not end up with princesses.”

Gendry does not need her to say it. He may be baseborn, but he is not stupid; he understands how the world is and his place within it. It is why he had Ser Beric knight him so long ago.

Bastards may not have songs sung about them, but there were plenty of songs about princesses loving knights.

* * *

When Gendry feels someone lift the blankets and slip into his bed, he expects Jeyne, come to make up. Usually he would accept her apologies with her limbs wrapped around him but not tonight, not with Arya down the hall, close enough she could hear. He turns on his side to send her away when Gendry finds himself staring into Arya's grey eyes. Before he can say anything, Arya has nudged him onto his back, throwing her leg over his body, balancing carefully on her knees above him.

“Arya - “

Her mouth is warm, the taste of wine still clinging to her tongue, and Gendry inhales sharply through his nose as she deepens the kiss, her hips settling against his; his fingers tangle in her long hair, and she makes a noise of complaint when Gendry finally pulls away.

“What's wrong?” When he says nothing, desperately trying to gather his thoughts, Arya snaps, “I thought you wanted to kiss me!”

“I _do_!” he quickly assures her, his hands grasping her hips when she starts to move away. Arya struggles for a moment, and Gendry pushes himself into a sitting position, trying to get her to stay still, to just _stay_.

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because I'm stupid,” he blurts out, and Arya smiles for a moment before letting him pull her back into a kiss.

Despite some of the Brotherhood's best efforts, Jeyne is the only woman he has ever laid with and vice versa; what he knows of women is only what he and Jeyne stumbled upon beneath the sheets. As he reverses their positions, Gendry wonders if Arya will want soft touches and kisses, if she will want to be held against his chest after they are done.

He will do anything Arya asks, but, just once, he wishes Arya was like other girls.

Arya gasps when his tongue finds her nipple through the tunic she wears but doesn't pull away; Gendry feels the bite of her fingers clutching at his hair, but it isn't painful. If anything, it makes him hungrier for her, for all the versions of her he knows and all he doesn't. He grasps her tunic, pulling it up, wanting to see her bare upon his pillow, when Arya catches his wrist. Gendry freezes, staring down into her flushed face, her lips swollen from his kisses, and desire flares even more acutely in his belly.

“I am going to leave in the morning,” she warns, the rasp of her voice stirring him even further. “I have things to finish.”

“I understand.” And he does. He may not know how Arya wants to be touched or why they can never seem to have a conversation without it devolving into fighting, but he understands wanting revenge, wanting _justice_ ; he would rather she get it now than to come back like Lady Stoneheart.

Her face softens as she draws him down, kissing him far more sweetly than he ever thought possible. “I will come back if you will have me. I can show you Winterfell.”

He is willing to let her show him all seven hells if she will come back. “I would like that.”

“Good.” Her expression becoming far more familiar, Arya sinks her fingers into his hair and says, “Then you can keep going.”

Gendry rushes to obey, wrestling her out of her tunic, fingers tugging at the knot which keeps her smallclothes in place. Arya lifts her hips to help, her grey eyes watching him with the same intensity they always have; it is not until she is nude, all long limbs and pale skin, dark hair spilling across his pillows, that Gendry realizes he is nervous. He has imagined this a thousand times – sometimes with a hand around his cock, sometimes with Jeyne beneath him – but this is _Arya_ , the girl who saved his life and left him with the Brotherhood, the girl he mourned and the girl he fantasized about finding again.

“Have you ever done this before?” he whispers when Arya pushes at his shoulder, rousing him from his thoughts.

“No, but I saw whore in Braavos. It doesn't look hard.”

Gendry laughs, the answer so unexpected and so thoroughly _Arya_ ; Arya instantly pushes at his shoulders, trying to force him onto his back. She would never be able to move him without his cooperation, and Gendry easily rolls, trying to contain his laughter even as Arya straddles his hips, glaring fiercely at him.

“I am sorry,” he cries as Arya's fist sinks into his ribcage. “You just surprised me. I didn't mean - “ He catches her wrists, trying to spare himself any additional blows. “Arya, I wasn't laughing at you.”

“Then why _were_ you laughing?”

“Because I've never met anyone like you.”

Arya stares down at him for a moment, her face folded in consideration, before declaring, “You had better not be so stupid when I come back.”

And then Arya climbs off of him, tugging her clothing back into place; Gendry wants to protest, to swear he will not breathe another word as long as he lives so long as Arya stops covering herself. But his words die on his tongue, waiting to see what she does next, following her lead as he always had. Arya does not pull her breeches back on, leaving her clad in her smallclothes and tunic, but she also does not move from the bed. Gendry tentatively moves closer, draping an arm over her body, tucking her against his chest; when Arya does not resist, he buries his nose in her hair, breathing in the scent of her.

“I missed you,” Arya murmurs so softly, Gendry is not certain whether she actually said the words or if he just imagined them.

He is too afraid to ask, so Gendry just kisses the back of her neck and lets the soothing sounds of her breath lead him towards sleep.

* * *

Arya is gone when Gendry awakens. He hopes she is downstairs breaking her fast, but Gendry knows better. Her horse – and his warmest woolen undershirts – are gone, and Gendry wonders if mayhaps she had not been there at all.

Only Jeyne's continued coldness confirms he did not hallucinate Arya Stark.

“How many times must she leave you before you understand she will never care for you the way you care for her?” Jeyne snaps one night, tossing down the rag she is using to clean one of the children's messes.

Gendry tries not to flinch from the assessment. “You do not know what you are talking about.”

“I know she's never coming back. And I know no woman leaves a man she loves without saying goodbye.” Jeyne scoffs at his blank expression. “But you will never listen because your precious princess is _different_.”

“Do not speak of her - “

“I shall never speak of her again. I will not need to.” Jeyne's angry face falters for a moment, and Gendry glimpses the rejection in her eyes. “I hope the memories of your princess keep you warm, Gendry, because that will be _all_ you have to warm your bed.”

He goes out to the forge, takes out his frustration on a piece of steel which is meant for one of the Brotherhood; Gendry beats upon it until his arms aches from the strain, and he throws his hammer down in disgust.

 _Jeyne doesn't know anything_ , he thinks as he exits the forge, shivering as the winter wind picks up and cuts him to the bone. _She doesn't know **Arya**. If she promised to come back, she'll come back._

In the distance, Gendry can see the familiar wolf pack running upon a hill; he watches for a moment, listens as the massive she-wolf which leads the pack bays at the swollen moon, and he thinks of the stories Arya used to tell when they were still traveling with Hot Pie, the ones about the direwolf she lost.

 _She will be back._

Gendry does not believe in the Seven or the Old Gods, but he believes in Arya Stark. He may be a baseborn bastard, but he is a _patient_ bastard. One day Arya will return and, when she does, he will be waiting.


End file.
